


resettled, unsettled

by miss_belivet



Series: the wonder poison archive [6]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Therapy, World War II, period-typical violence, the "wonder woman has a female ex-supervillain life partner" series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 05:23:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11097780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_belivet/pseuds/miss_belivet
Summary: Isabel loved her poisons, but Diana can fill the void.





	resettled, unsettled

**Author's Note:**

> I was too interested in Isabel & Diana throughout history to quit! This may become an extended series that explores history and their relationship, together and separately.

Even though Isabel is not the most forthcoming of personalities herself, Diana confides in her often. When they lay in bed at night, she will whisper the worries of the world in Isabel's ear. Occasionally, she will bring newspapers back to Themyscira for Isabel and the Amazonian senate, but some visits are too quick for her to remember them.

Isabel, for her part, tries not to seem too interested when Germany invades Poland in 1939. Instead, she nestles her face against the smooth skin between Diana's shoulder and her neck, scarred side hidden, and sighs when Diana wraps her hair around her fingers. The League of Nations outlawed chemical warfare a year ago, and Isabel still doesn't know whether she is relieved or disappointed about it. At the very least, it makes dissociating from this German war much easier.

xXx

That is, until Diana returns from Japan in 1940. The Japanese forces are reportedly using Doctor Poison's hydrogen gas in South Asia, and she is sickeningly intrigued by how they managed to recreate it without her original formula. How is it dispersing in their climate? What methods are they using to distribute it? Are they igniting it after the intended victims are exposed, or do they let them suffer?

"Are you alright?" Diana asks when she sees the contemplative look on her face.

Isabel applies the poultice she has been mixing to Diana's sore shoulder, runs her fingers over the lasso beside her lover, and nods. They haven't used the lasso seriously since an incident in 1928, but Isabel has grown fond of it in the elapsed time. The Amazons won't train her, but they will let her watch Diana practice now.

Diana peers at her closely; Isabel knows it's difficult to make out her full expression when half her face is covered. "Are you sure?"

"Old habits are coming back to haunt me." She lets Diana unwind the scarf she is wearing over her face and hair and leans forward, pressing their lips together. "I will be fine."

"If you are certain..." Diana stops, and then starts as she sometimes does when she has an idea that she is apprehensive about. "You could talk to someone. Ares told me he influenced your thought patterns. Dianthe still offers counsel to some who faced him in the uprising."

Isabel purses what remains of her lips and looks away. Arms lock around her waist, and suddenly she's close enough to smell the spiced herbs of the poultice, even with her injured nose. 

"I know you want to discover how much was Ares and how much was you. Dianthe can help."

xXx

The first thing Dianthe learns about Isabel is that she doesn't entirely regret what she did. Isabel isn't allowed back into the infirmary for three weeks, when Diana visits Themyscira for an afternoon and raises a mortifying fuss about it.

xXx

In June 1942, Diana brings a booklet to Isabel. When she opens it, she is taken aback by the neat lines of Sumerian characters detailing an extermination technique. The language coding and hypotheses are so similar to her own, but this proposal is stranger than any of her own ever were.

"Zyklon? A pesticide!" But it is a very potent one: hydrogen cyanide. She experimented with it in 1917, but it wasn't vicious or quick enough on a battlefield, in her and Ludendorff's opinion. Still, her brief use of Zyklon managed to ban the substance after the war ended. "Any fool with a gas mask would be protected."

Diana turns the page and points to a passage that outlines the procedure. Airtight chambers, filled with people and the activated chemical pellets. "The victims won't have masks. How does it work?"

Isabel eyes Diana, who stares unblinkingly back at her. They speak about her past _area of interest_ fairly often, but aside from one conversation in which Isabel explained her pet project in complete detail, she has never been asked technical questions. Even thinking about the effects a deadly chemical compound can have on the body feels like she is stretching a stiff limb, and she is reluctant to reveal that part of herself to Diana.

"I am sure other biochemists can tell you."

"I trust you. It is not... so easy, out there."

For the first time, the depth of Diana's feelings toward her strikes Isabel. She isn't an emotional person by nature, but hearing it aloud shakes something loose in her chest. Certainly, sharing her bed required a measure of trust from Diana, but enough lust or loneliness could also influence that. Twenty years ago, she would have contributed to the distrust among Diana's inner circle, but now...

She is the innermost ring.

Isabel flips to a blank page in the back of the booklet, picks up a pen, and pulls Diana close. She doesn't release her until the usage conditions and bodily effects of hydrogen cyanide are outlined clearly enough for Diana to understand and explain to others.

She writes in her old Sumerian code, just to be cautious, but Diana briefly grins at the sight of an ancient sweet nothing Isabel scribbles in an empty corner and kisses her cheek above the mask she is wearing today.

"You just don't want to anyone else to read that."

Isabel slaps the booklet shut and returns to her catalog of herb-based medicinal cocktails. "Tread cautiously, Wonder Woman."

xXx

The next three years pass in an almost suspended state of being; life on Themyscira continues in peace as always, interrupted by hurried visits from Diana that always bring bad news. Isabel finds herself on the receiving end of Diana's stress once the Amazons on the training grounds have been exhausted, but she looks forward to it, more often than not.

Isabel inadvertently helps develop gas masks that can withstand her old gas; almost immediately she creates, in theory only, a new gas that would destroy the new masks. She tells Dianthe, and her work in the infirmary is restricted to non-medicinal nursing for a week.

In 1945, Diana and Isabel are tangled together on a bench overlooking one of the island's cliffs, and a heavy exhale stiffens her spine.

"I need you to testify. Out there, in the world of man."

Isabel isn't surprised; her information had been fueling much of Diana's recent campaign against chemical warfare. Almost thirty years have passed, and she is still an expert in her field. Isabel hasn't left Themyscira in over a decade, however, and the last time she was in the outside world, she was a poorly disguised war criminal herself.

"Where?"

xXx

_Doctor Poison_

_whole towns slaughtered_

_that's Doctor Poison_

_why is she here_

_d'you think she's getting sentenced_

_Isabel Maru_

_serves her right_

_killed millions in the first war_

_what's under the mask_

_worse than one of these brainless Nazis_

_all alone—millions!_

_Doctor Poison is here to hang like the rest of 'em_

_Wonder Woman is guarding her_

_look..._

Not much prepares the press and the spectators to receive Isabel Maru, Doctor Poison, as a key source of information for the Allies. The stiff, wool coat and porcelain mask make her look exactly like old photos of herself; Themyscira's mysterious aging restriction only adds to the effect. Even after she testifies, the whispers follow her out of the courtroom on Diana's heels.

They return to the island within the day, and Diana locks their door and shutters their windows. Under the covers, she peels back Isabel's mask and traces the edges of her gaping scar with her fingertips and then her lips. She is touched with such gentleness and devotion that it is easy to forget the poison beginning to brew again in her chest, one that she did her best to leave behind twenty-seven years ago.

Isabel can exist solely in the way Diana looks at her, if only for an evening.

**Author's Note:**

> Prepare yourselves, because I think smut is up next.


End file.
